The sunlight is warm and wide
and tender, resting

on the kitchen countertop,
the fruit, the veins in my hand.

The oranges have gone a bit
soft, the apples are delicately

bruised. But they look so new
in the light. I wonder at what

the light can do, how it reflects
off of the old thin scar on the back

of my hand where the cells
have knit themselves back

together. It’s so pale, in that silver
in that sliver, a little brighter than the rest

of the flesh, so finite, luminous,
singing in the afternoon’s hazed glow. 

Cassandra Baliga is a recent graduate of Purdue Fort Wayne with a B.A. in English. She’s had work appear in The Red Booth Review, Confluence, and ANGLES, and is a two-time winner of the DeKalb County Snowbound Writer’s Contest. She loves to read, write, and eat too much string cheese, which she shares with her dog Scrufaline.